Inferno wrote:1) What can be done to counter that movement? It seems a fair number of people who would have voted centre-right are now voting left, simply because they’re frightened by a right-wing takeover or a cooperation.

This is a fundamental question, and I'm not sure there's a simple answer. You're right that there's an undeniable rise in nationalism and Euro-scepticism across the EU, and it is concerning to me.

Would it be, for the sake of discussion, a good idea to create a new party in this thread?

What would its core principles be?How do we apply those principles to drafting policy?Which policies should be emphasised in our manifesto?

I realise this might not be where you're interested in taking the thread, but perhaps it would be good for crystalising your views on the next step.

2) Seeing the post in the context of the above letter: Do you think it’s true that we will only fight side by side if there are common enemies, as opposed to common goals? I can’t shake the horrible feeling that there might be something to it.

I'm not convinced it's the "natural order of things", per se, but I would consider it the prevalent mindset.

Prolescum wrote:Would it be, for the sake of discussion, a good idea to create a new party in this thread?

I wanted to save that for a later blog post, it's what this is eventually leading up to. I expect to be at that point sometime in September.I'm currently reading through a bunch of Austrian laws to see how to establish a political party. (It's not that difficult, actually.)I'm also nearly done with Mark Henderson's "The Geek Manifesto", an argument for more scientific thinking in science.

If you're already bursting then go for it, but I'll wait a bit.

"Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed." ― Friedrich Nietzsche